The present invention relates to an electronic percussion instrument of the type in which a desired musical sound is produced by striking or swinging a stick-shaped striker or a drumstick against a drum or the like.
An electronic percussion instrument of this type is already known from the Japanese Utility Model Application Publication No. 5912/59. In this known electronic percussion instrument, a number of piezo-electric elements are embedded in the tip of each of the associated drumsticks used with the instrument, to convert a drumstick's vibrations, caused by striking it against a drum or the like, into electric signals, so that the musical sound which corresponds to a drumstick vibrating will be emitted from one or multiple loudspeakers.
The aforementioned known electronic percussion instrument is, however, accompanied with certain drawbacks. One of the drawbacks lies in the fact that an instrument which uses piezo-electric elements to generate the electric signals necessary for producing desired musical sounds, is quite expensive. Not only are such piezo-electric elements relatively expensive, they are also prone to degradation with time, consequently prohibiting the generation of electric signals of a required level and, therefore, the production of desired musical sounds, after a long period of use. Another drawback of the known electronic percussion instrument is that since electric signals are detected and desired musical sounds are produced only when the drumstick strikes where piezo-electric elements are embedded, variegated playing performances, for example using the tail of the drumsticks or swinging them, cannot be achieved.
The drumstick of the above-described known electronic percussion instrument is provided with a plurality of piezo-electric elements having different stress sensitivities and frequency characteristics, in order that a musical sound can be generated selectively with a number of different timbres. With this known electronic percussion instrument, however, since different timbres of a musical note are produced by providing a corresponding number of piezo-electric elements having different stress sensitivities and frequency characteristics, the number of different timbres is, nevertheless, limited by the number of the piezo-electric elements which can be incorporated in the drumstick, and thus, a wide variety of timbres beyond that limit cannot be obtained for a given musical note. While it is conceivable for someone skilled in the art to produce an electronic percussion instrument in which a striking or swinging action of a striker or drumstick triggers a switching action of a musical sound-initiating command signal generator, which in turn generates a predetermined musical sound-initiating command signal, a striking or oscillating action by a striker of such a percussion instrument may, however, be accompanied by chattering which may produce undesired musical sounds in the musical sound generating unit. Therefore, preventive measures against such chattering should be provided for this type of electronic percussion instrument.